Are we “traveling to escape reality?”

As I continue my journey of traveling around the world I come across a question I am often asked by friends, family, and even strangers. “What are you running from?” Many think I travel to escape reality which is true.. But not the way you think. You probably think of all the comments us frequent travelers have to hear all the time. People who travel a lot are restless souls, never happy with what they have, not ready to settle down, afraid to make real life decisions and all that. They think we are a bunch of unsatisfied, escapist runaways who put off living life until well, as long as possible.

I do agree we travel to escape reality but why does that have to be bad thing? I believe that nearly all of us are running but for many different reason.

Some are restless souls trying to find happiness in external things like adventure and experiences. In other words, they’re trying to escape from who they are right now hoping to change. Some are dreamers running away from society hoping to find an escape somewhere else or to find an answer telling them that life doesn’t have to be the way people force it to be.

Traveling is one thing you can do to free your mind from stress and other negative emotions. But more than that, it gives you an opportunity to learn more about yourself and things around you. You may want to travel with your family, closest friends, or even alone.

For me I am traveling to escape the reality of being normal. But what does that mean? It means that I refuse to live the same routine day in and day out. Society today wants us to work the same old 9 to 5 job, get married, buy a house, start a family, grow old and die… For me I want to “do more than just exist.” When I’m old I want to look back at life and say man, what a ride that was. I want people to look at my life and say “what an inspiration he was, he definitely lived a good life.”

My goal is to inspire as many people as possible and make an impact no matter how big or small. For the longest time I wasn’t happy with myself. Life was kicking my ass until one day I up and left. I found through traveling it was easy to start over. And that I did.. I made a life for myself worth waking up for every morning. So in a sense you can say I “ranaway” or I was a “coward for not facing my problems” but I did it because I was tired of life beating me down and doing nothing about it. I decided to make something of it.

So I guess you can say us travelers are “running away from reality” but in the end its not a bad thing. If you are happy then who cares what you are doing. The bottom-line is to live your life the way you want to because in the end all you have is yourself!! Don’t be afraid to go against the waves, you might be surprised to what you find on the other side of it.

6 Replies to “Are we “traveling to escape reality?””

This is so beautifully written and i agree 100%! Travelling to escape the reality of “normal” is something I look forward to, and living life to the fullest because we are getting older day by day and are only this young once!

Heya:) oh this is such a great post!! It’s meaning in echoing all the way down on my spine. I asked myself the same question recently, am I running away from something? But no, it’s to find myself. To see I can exist outside of the confines of a boring, same old pattern… wrote a post once about “on traveling to distant places” where I talk about the difference between internal and external travel, in case that sounds interesting to you.
Lots of ❤️,
Finja – http://www.effcaa.com

Very important post! Totally agree with your sentiment. Personally, I want to make sure that I travel, explore and live abroad because I am moving TO something (a goal, personal growth, personal challenge, etc.) as opposed to running FROM something. Although, a new place can provide a fresh start, I believe you have to be cautious. If you are the type of person who dwells on the negative and can’t seem to rise above life’s challenges, there is a danger of you taking that with you to this new place… you end up the same unhappy person in a new place. Respectfully using “you” in the generic term, not you personally. 🙂 But, don’t forget to write an About page! I love reading people’s backstory! https://travelinspireconnect.wordpress.com/

This is a text widget. The Text Widget allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. You can use a text widget to display text, links, images, HTML, or a combination of these. Edit them in the Widget section of the Customizer.